Lexie Blackwood: America's Own Alex Rider
by soup.lover
Summary: Set in post-series time. Turns out the CIA had their very own child spy up their sleeve, and her name is Lexie Blackwood. Now she's a "retired" agent, but after being involved with intelligence, who knows what can happen to her? Check back each week for more chapters. First story, feedback is appreciated. Otherwise, enjoy.
1. The New Kid On The Block

**_THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK_**

Mrs. Jones tapped her finger on the edge of her desk. She looked irritated, almost frustrated, which was uncharacteristic of her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a peppermint, unwrapping it and popping it into her mouth. She glanced at the file on the desk. It was stamped with a confidentiality seal and embossed with the coat of arms of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mrs. Jones was the new head of Special Operations of the MI6, Britain's intelligence service. She had been the deputy head to Mr. Alan Blunt for many years before, and she finally had the opportunity to step up after Blunt's retirement. They had parted on friendly terms, ending their partnership with the ordeal of the terrorist organization Scorpia and the child spy Alex Rider. Mrs. Jones was terribly glad that the Alex Rider situation was all over now. She knew she had made the right choice by sending him off to San Francisco to live with the Pleasures and their daughter Sabina. Mrs. Jones, unlike Mr. Blunt, had understood what Jack Starbright had meant to Alex when she was still alive. Hopefully he'd be happy now with a family to be a part of. Mr. Blunt would be having a jolly time too. Mrs. Jones knew that he had gone off on a 6-week long tour of Europe immediately after his retirement, and she wondered what he was up to now. Probably prying his unwanted knightly nose in some foreign intelligence agency's business.

Mrs. Jones had been the head of Special Operations for three months now, and she had been given a relatively easy start. The few cases that had cropped up were rather simple and had been taken care of quickly enough, without much fuss or scandal. That she was thankful for. So it came as a slight disappointment, but certainly not a surprise, when the intriguing file showed up on her desk that morning. However, it wasn't in her place to feel disappointed, or to feel anything at all for that matter. There was a national crisis to be solved, and it was in the file on her desk. That was the end of the story. With a deep breath, she refocused her thoughts on the file that lay in front of her.

It was from the CIA. That was odd, they didn't consult with the MI6 often. The first thing in the file was a photograph of a teenage girl. She had wavy copper brown hair, with olive skin and brown eyes. Her eyes conveyed a sense of intelligence and curiosity. Gently placing the photograph aside, Mrs. Jones continued to read what was written on the printed page. The girl's name was Lexie Blackwood. She was a 15 year old British girl living in Washington, D.C with her caretaker, Annabelle Bryant. As Mrs. Jones continued reading, her eyes widened in shock. She could not believe what she was seeing.


	2. The Nation's Capital

**_THE NATION'S CAPITAL_**

As the sleepy girl stumbled into the kitchen in the early hours of the morning and set some water to boil, a voice sounded behind her.

"Lex! What have I told you? You're too young for coffee!"

Annabelle Bryant, Lexie Blackwood's caretaker and practically second mother, stood in doorway defiantly.

"I will _not_ have you on a caffeine high on a Monday morning before your first day at a new school, thank you very much!" she continued.

Lexie returned with a lazy grin.

"I was just making tea. Besides, I was planning to give you a mug too."

Annabelle Bryant was not a harsh guardian. Nor was Lexie Blackwood the smart aleck she made out to be. In fact, they were both very nice people.

Annabelle walked over and ruffled Lexie's hair.

"I know. I just want you to have a perfect first day," Annabelle said, smoothing out the slightly wrinkled collar of Lexie's new school uniform.

"I promise I won't fuss anymore this morning. After all, this is your life now. Though you really ought to let me iron this shirt again…"

Lexie rolled her eyes.

"Alright, alright, I won't fuss," Annabelle smiled.

Lexie was one of a kind. Now she was a typical fifteen-year-old British schoolgirl, though it hadn't always been that easy. The Blackwoods were a British family living in London. Lexie's parents had died when she was just two years old, so she didn't really remember much about them. Come to think of it, she didn't even really understand how they had died. Lexie had stayed with her godmother, the world-famous British fashion designer Violet Artemis, for most of her primary school years. Violet Artemis was a busy woman, for she ran the number one fashion magazine in the country. She had even divorced her husband for her career, which was why Lexie had never met her godfather. Violet Artemis was barely at home, so she hired the American baby-sitter Annabelle Bryant to care of little Lexie. Then one day, Artemis had to take off for Chile because she had decided to open up a new office there for her magazine. Lexie was far too young to be uprooted from her home and sent to live in Chile with her godmother who didn't have time for her. Since Annabelle's visa had just expired, they decided to have Lexie move to Washington, D.C with Annabelle. Because Annabelle became her official guardian, Lexie gained American citizenship, and became one of the unique few with dual American-British passports. Lexie spent many years in D.C, going to American public school, living the typical American lifestyle. Until Serbius Keln had showed up.

Serbius Keln was a deadly criminal whose family had a century long feud with the Blackwood family. As the only Blackwood member left, Lexie was the one Keln was after. With guidance from the Central Intelligence Agency, Lexie not only averted Keln, but set a trap that led him to fall straight into the hands of the CIA. She could now rest assured that he was locked up in some doubly-secure holding cell in the Pentagon. Or even dead.

The CIA had taken interest in Lexie after working with her on Serbius Keln, and then they had decided to do the unspeakable. They hired Lexie as a spy when she was 14 years old. In fact, the whole thing had been Joe Byrne's idea. Lexie had done a splendid job with eliminating Keln, and so he sent her on another mission. And after that, another one. It hadn't taken long for Lexie to become the CIA's very own teen spy.

Lexie had been cooperative at first. Then after a few missions, she had a close call with a man named Zeljan Kurst of Scorpia. She would have died if Joe Byrnes hadn't sent in a special warrant for a SEAL team to help fish Lexie out. Usually, if it were between losing one agent or risking the CIA's cover, the CIA would choose losing the agent. But Lexie was special, and Byrne did everything to save her. Afterwards, Lexie and Annabelle had decided that it would be best for them to move back to London and forget all about the CIA. Annabelle had been able to get a permanent visa with the help of Byrne. The two of them had just arrived in London a week ago, and were settling down nicely. Lexie was starting her first day of school. All her spying days were behind her, as far as she was concerned.


	3. It's Time

**_IT'S TIME_**

Thousands of miles away stood a very powerful man in a suit. He stood on the top floor of a towering skyscraper with floor to ceiling windows of ballistic glass. The view was spectacular. The sunlight poured through the windows and refracted off the glittering water of the harbor in the distance.

Many did not know the powerful man, but he didn't mind this fact. As long as he had extreme power over a few of his own most loyal servants, he was satisfied. Whoever said that power had to come in large quantities? A small but highly concentrated amount was all anyone ever needed. The rest would take care of itself.

"Ah-ming!" the powerful man snapped. "_Dong ling tsa! _Where is my tea?"

Ah-ming, a tidy man wearing a buttoned plaid shirt tucked into his khakis, came bustling into the room holding a tall glass of tea with crushed ice cubes and the traditional seven lemon slices. He didn't seem to mind to be waiting on this powerful man. He was obviously one of the loyal ones.

"_Ma sheung, xeen-xang! _It's right here for you, sir!"

"_Don't_ call me 'sir'. It's filthy and degrading. I may be the one giving out the orders and calling the big shots, but I'm one of you. Don't forget that," the suit said loftily.

"Yes, of course, thank you," stammered Ah-ming.

"Ah-ming, come closer and sit down. We have important matters to discuss today. The time is coming soon, and we must be ready." The suit signaled to a seat across from his in the spacious and luxuriously furnished office.

"'The time'?" Ah-ming inquired. "You mean 'Day Z'?"

"_Gum chun!_ You're so clueless sometimes, Ah-ming. Of course that's what I mean! You're going to have to be a lot smarter now that Serbius is gone, do you understand? They've got him locked up tight in the god-forbidden Pentagon, so we're not hearing from him any time soon. He could be dead, for all we know. So silly. He risked the whole plan just to try to kill some random girl with a bad surname. She wasn't even lethal! Not even the slightest hindrance to our scheme, and he went and tried to murder her, and all for what? Just to clear the Keln name in the history books. Yes, the history books. That's what took him away. But we know the code. We have to carry through even without him at the helm, and I think we'll do okay."

"Then it's coming. It's really coming. Day Z is actually going to happen," Ah-ming muttered in disbelief as the realization hit him.

"_Gung hai lah! _Of course! Do you think all that preparation was for _nothing_? We've had lives lost for this. Do you remember Esteban? How about Kut-xing? And the Monsieur?"

Ah-ming furrowed his brows. "Yes, yes, I remember the Monsieur."

The suit slurped the last of his tea and got up from his seat to walk towards the window overlooking the water. He stared out for a long while, lost in thought. Then finally, he spoke.

"It's time. It's time for everything we've all been working towards for so long. Go alert the others. Tell them that we _will_ be starting Stage Gamma in 48 hours, no matter how much disagreement there is. My opinion is unanimous. Go. Now."

"Yes. _Jit cak_. Right away, anything you say," said Ah-ming.

The powerful man swiveled around.

"Day Z will happen."


	4. Not The Faintest Idea

**_NOT THE FAINTEST IDEA_**

Mrs. Jones finished reading the last page of the file and closed the folder. Then she sat there and thought.

_The girl is not safe_, she thought. That much was obvious. People whose photographs appeared in confidential CIA files were usually in danger. _But what's more important… is the girl really that valuable? _

The contents of the folder had shocked her, and as a MI6 worker who had seen many different situations before—typically those that were life-threatening and required drastic measures—she was not one to be easily fazed.

_Lexie Blackwood. America's very own Alex Rider. Unbelievable. The hypocrisy! _

Ever since Byrnes had learned of Alex Rider, there had been endless torrents of complaints filed against the MI6 by the CIA about the rights of the child and the validity of intelligence membership and the value of years of experience in training before going on a mission. And here it was. The CIA pulling a page out of the MI6's book. They had hired a child spy. And she was here, in London, potentially putting all the other English people at risk were anything to go wrong with her retirement from the agency.

The file also spoke of a lethal man named Serbius Keln. Mrs. Jones had immediately asked her secretary to cross check the name with the MI6 files, but the efforts had been fruitless. There was no Serbius Keln on record in the MI6. She had also paged the new Deputy Head of Special Operations, and he walked into her office now, carrying a file of his own.

Oliver Rease was a good-looking man in his late 20's, with a sizable crop of sandy golden hair and a cheerful gait. He had just recently taken up his position in Special Operations after working in Data Analysis for most of his career. Rease was the only one in the entire office who dared to not wear a suit to work—he consistently showed up in khakis and boldly colored polo shirts, a different color for each day of the week. He was a bit too perky for Mrs. Jones' liking, but she kept that to herself. Why the board of public services had hired _him_ of all people, she had not the slightest clue. Surely there were far more experienced officers that had spent years in Special Operations who were qualified for such a prestigious position? But Mrs. Jones was not in the position to ask such questions. After all, Rease had not done anything terribly wrong so far, nor had he turned in any particularly poor work. Although he could be quite cocky and condescending sometimes, he was respectful towards Mrs. Jones, and that sat just fine with her.

"You paged, Mrs. J?"

Mrs. Jones flinched. Rease was also the only one in the entire office who had the audacity to call her "Mrs. J."

"Please, take a seat. We have a lot to discuss today."

Rease sat down across from her, looking excited. He placed the file he was carrying down on the desk. Then he started talking a mile a minute.

"I know, right? Isn't this absolutely insane? I couldn't believe it either when I first read it! The last time they actually executed an operation was seven years ago, but they failed, and now they're at it again, and this week they're starting the third part of their plan, and I heard that they've got a hundred top engineers backing them, and when I say top, I _mean_ top, like they've got the boys from MIT and CalTech and Harvard, and even some of the best lads down from Imperial—"

He paused, seeing the incredulous look on Mrs. Jones' face. There was an awkward moment of silence before Rease realized what was going on. He spoke up again, in a much more timid tone this time.

"You—you haven't the faintest idea what I'm rattling on about, do you?"

Mrs. Jones slowly shook her head.

"It's all in here," piped Rease, as he pushed the file across the table. This one was marked with _two_ confidentiality seals.

"Why didn't this get sent straight to me?" Mrs. Jones shot as she opened the file.

"You'll have to ask the clerk, then. Poor old bloke. He's getting a tad senile, mustn't remember whose office is where anymore. I thought you paged me to talk about this case, you see…"

Mrs. Jones scanned the page. Something jumped out at her—a name. Serbius Keln.

"Rease, I trust that you've already read up on this case?"

"Certainly, Mrs. J."

She was never going to get used to that.

"Then please enlighten me. Who exactly is this Serbius Keln character?"

Rease sounded like he was reciting a Wikipedia entry.

"Serbius Keln. 1978. The ninth son of Mr. Cataran del Kleiber Keln… Not quite sure what kind of name _that _is, or _how_ much sex he was having to have that many children, but—"

"Rease!"

"Right, sorry. As I was saying. The ninth son of Mr. Cataran del Kleiber Keln. Born in Jordan, raised in Moscow, then migrated to Fort Worth, Texas at the age of fourteen. After all his immediate family died in some sort of tragic accident, he became fully committed to vengeance. Started up some sort of amateur terrorist group, which turned out to be a remarkable failure, actually. Then decided to continue the family feud with some British family, the Blackwoods. He got screwed over by the Agency, and now they've got him locked up someplace."

Mrs. Jones considered this for a moment. The Blackwoods and Serbius Keln were intertwined, for whatever reason. Could it really just be because of some glorified feud? But Keln hadn't shown up in any of the conducted searches. Strange.

"You used to work over at Data Analysis. Can you tell me why nothing came up when I searched Keln?" Mrs. Jones asked.

"I thought you didn't know about this case, Mrs. J. How is it that you know about Keln?"

Mrs. Jones handed Lexie Blackwood's file to Rease.

"_This_ is actually what I paged you about."


	5. Coincidence

**_COINCIDENCE_**

Rease turned over the last page of Lexie Blackwood's file and let out a low whistle.

"So it's true," he murmured.

"What's true?" asked Mrs. Jones.

He looked up.

"All the while when I was down in DA, I was always the newest guy. I filled their last empty spot, you see. So everyone dumped the grunge work onto my shoulders. And that meant futile research on seemingly futile matters. Like the Blackwood-Keln feud."

Rease explained how years ago, someone "high up" in the MI6 had filed a request for information about the Blackwoods and the Kelns. Since members of both families hadn't committed any significant acts of vandalism or violence in recent decades, none of the analysts wanted to be stuck with such a dull task. As such, the work got tossed around the office from person to person, with those at the top of the department passing it down lower and lower through the ranks, until it became a ritual to assign it to the newest worker. Because no one in the MI6 had ever declared the case officially closed, the assignment had been stuck in the department ever since. Most recently, it had been stuck in the hands of Oliver Rease.

"Anyways," Rease continued, "I don't see what this Lexie girl has got to do with anything. But surely the CIA didn't send us her file just for the bloody hell of it?"

"It says here that Joe Byrnes let her go willingly," said Mrs. Jones. "He even helped Annabelle Bryant, her American guardian, obtain a permanent visa to stay in England. Maybe there is more to the story. Or perhaps Byrnes just wants to notify us about the presence of this girl in our country."

Deep down, Mrs. Jones knew that it wasn't as simple as that, and Rease seemed to think the same.

"Why would he go into the trouble of sending this without a valid reason?" Rease debated. "Sure, she ran a few errands for the CIA, but that doesn't make her a VIP. Maybe in the States it does, but as long as she's on British soil, she's just an ordinary schoolgirl. She's got dual citizenship, mind you."

Mrs. Jones nodded.

"Given Serbius Keln's connection to the girl and the coincidental timing of the emergence of the other case…"

Rease finished her sentence for her.

"…indicates that probably none of it is a coincidence at all."

Silence hung in the room, the implications of the puzzle pieces dawning on the two officers. It was Mrs. Jones who was the first to click back to action. She spoke urgently.

"Tell me more about Serbius Keln's terrorist organization."

"Luckily for you, that's what I spent most of the past year collecting information on. None of it will be in the British files, because Keln hasn't had anything to do with England apart from the Blackwoods. Though his terrorist organization was more of a terrorist _flop_—"

"We'll not pass any judgment quite so soon."

"Alright then," said Rease, pushing a tuft of his blonde hair out of his eyes. "It's called Dragon. A daft name, in my opinion—"

"We're not entitled to opinions here in Special Operations," snapped Mrs. Jones. She was starting to have enough of Rease's antics.

"Sorry. Where was I? Right, Dragon. Keln started up Dragon twelve years ago. According to current sources, Dragon is based somewhere in China. Unsurprising, given the name. Its members come from all over the place—France, Argentina, Papua New Guinea, Myanmar—come to think of it, I think they've managed to snag someone from North Korea as well. Their goal?"

Rease paused for dramatic effect. Seeing the blank look on Mrs. Jones' face, he sighed and carried on.

"Their goal is not very clear. Their last operation seven years ago was a complete failure. Totally busted by Interpol. But they've regrouped since then, and they've carried out the first two stages of their newest scheme, undetected. This is where the top engineers I was talking about come in. The engineers are there to make sure that Dragon doesn't screw up again. And they're not just _any _engineers. They've got the very best. When they recruit, they're not after the fresh grads. They're after the most brilliant students, luring them out of school to work for them. Not to mention the child prodigies. Those are the ones they're really after."

That caught Mrs. Jones' attention.

"Did you say—did you say child prodigies? _Child _prodigies?"

"Yes, but why does that matter—"

"Rease. Put me on a secure line with Byrnes. Then tell the secretary in the hall to ring Lexie Blackwood and make sure she comes in for a meeting."

Mrs. Jones faltered for a moment, then continued.

"As much as I hate to have to involve a child again, I'm afraid we've been left with no choice."


End file.
